#1
Mind-boggling graphs. Washington politicos are bunch of drama queens. I've heard so much about the fiscal cliff; sometimes I think the Pubs ought to step back and let Obama go over the fiscal cliff. Let him own it; we (the people) already do. Raising taxes as Obama wants will head us back into recession although I doubt we ever left it. I wonder if Obama's voters will get their heads out of the sand and realize their guy is running out of other people's money to redistribute to them.

#2
I'm beginning to think the congresscritters from both sides of the aisle have already compromised to the full extent of their corrupted abilities when they agreed to this so-called 2013 Budget Control Act. It's the best deal we're gonna be able to get.

[Detroit.CBSLocal] Managing expectations is his day-to-day position against people who believe the mayor can solve all of Detroit's problems is the hardest thing he deals with every day.

That's according to an interview Detroit Mayor Dave Bing did with CNN where he talked about the community's deep problems and how he plans to solve them.

"We are in an environment, I think, of entitlement, we've got a lot of people who are city workers, who for years and years, 20, 30 years, think they are entitled to a job and all that comes with it," Bing said.

He added: "Nobody wants to go backwards, but in order for us to move this city forward we're going to have to take a step or two backwards -- and then, I think, all of us have to participate in the pain that' s upon us right now."

But the real bombshell may be Bing's sense of the hardest jobs in the country.

"(My job is) to make the hard decision so this city would have a future, but it's probably the second most difficult job in this country behind the president," he said.

As part of managing expectations, he said people have to realize "Detroit's not going to be what it was," adding, "We've got to look at it differently."

He thinks the downtown will be strong in the future, as will Midtown and the riverfront. But parts of the city will have to disappear from the need for services.

Bing said he wants to convince people in largely abandoned neighborhoods to move to more populated areas so there's density and a sense of a tight-knit community again, saying, "So we can bring people and families together like it used to be."

#1
"We are in an environment, I think, of entitlement, we've got a lot of people who are city workers, who for years and years, 20, 30 years, think they are entitled to a job and all that comes with it," Bing said.

#4
Was talking to guy about the woes of destroit. He said he came across a story about a fellow who bought an old football stadium for $250k and built a house on the field, so some people are getting good deals.

That would require innate family values.
Out of wedlock birthrates say its not going to happen with the population you have. That behavior is not going to change as long as people believe government is a substitute for their day to day living costs and support that the 'family' performed for thousands of years of human societal evolution. It wasn't perfect, but it worked. You got more of what you subsidized and it doesn't work.

[Iran Press TV] US Republican politicians have rejected as "ridiculous" and "unreasonable" President Barack Obama's How's it going, Sunshine?... tax proposal that includes 1.6-trillion-dollar tax hikes over the next decade.

"While USD1.6 trillion is the White House's public position, it is ridiculous to offer that amount two weeks after negotiations began - and less than a month before we must have a solution," said a Congressional Republican aide who spoke on condition of anonymity after Obama's fiscal plan was presented by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Thursday, AFP reported.

Describing the offer by the White House as unrealistic and unbalanced, he went on to say that "It (proposal) calls for USD1.6 trillion in tax hikes (over the next decade) - all of that upfront - in exchange for only USD400 billion in spending cuts that come later."

The plan also calls for new powers to raise the federal debt limit, which must increase in the near future to prevent a default.

If the democrats and republicans do not reach a compromise by January 2013, tax increases and spending cuts kick in automatically, costing US taxpayers an average of more than USD 2,000 a year.

#2
The plan also calls for new powers to raise the federal debt limit..

At the wish and whim of the President/Executive. Printing money without controls is just another form of taxing. It takes value out of existing money by debasing its ratio of backing/value to amount in circulation. In essence, with an unlimited authority to 'print' the King no longer needs Parliament to run government. That is indeed a transformative act to change America back to when it was but a backwater to London and royal prerogatives.

#3
Republicans are damned if they do and damned if they don't. They'll take the blame if we go over the cliff but if they let His Majesty have His way they will have nothing left to do but watch as the consequences unfold.

Boehner: Mr. President, do you like travel?

Obama: Why, yes I do. You know how much I enjoy jetting around the world with the taxpayers footing the bills.

Specifically, Ogabe wants to transfer the power from Congress to himself. Awesome: let him have it, and make him own it. It won't matter anyway. Foreign markets will set a limit on how much more the US can borrow. With the debt already at $16.3 trillion and climbing - and the commensurate decreasing likelihood that any of it will ever be repaid - we don't have much borrowing capacity left. When it's gone, the US will default and trigger a global finanical meltdown. Let that be Ogabe's legacy, so we don't ever make this mistake again.

A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.